I’m particularly excited to be moderating the “How Much Do We Trust the Machine?” panel since the panelists include honored guest Ada Palmer. I’m just about finished with her novel Too Like the Lightning, and am really enjoying it.

As for my reading slot, I’m still undecided as to what exactly I’ll be reading. I haven’t been making as much forward progress on The Beasts of Qaza as I’d like, and I’m not sure any of the new chapters are ready for public consumption. It’ll probably end up being a game time decision. I’ll be sure to post an update after the convention. To keep track of real-time news and notes during the convention, make sure to connect with me on Twitter.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

A Special Report from Jayna Bosse

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a decreased interest in writing from young audiences. With excessive word requirements in school assignments and the lack of time in many students’ schedules, kids now don’t write for leisure, but to hit a word count to appeal to their teachers.

As academia has evolved over the years, writing requirements have only increased in intensity and length, which, in turn, causes the immediate repulsed reaction from most students.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but the last couple of months have been a blur. Here's a quick rundown of my story...

Back in early November, I was a panelist on the "Not of This World" panel at the 2017 California Library Association's annual conference. It was great to meet so many librarians (and not get shushed, not even once) as well as the other panelists, including SF author Daniel Suarez and librarian JJ Jacobsen, who manages the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction at UC Riverside.

I also participated in NaNoWriMo in November, and while I didn't make a big splash with my word count, I made some crucial revisions to the first several chapters of The Beasts of Qaza that needed to happen before moving forward.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Jayna Bosse's Interview with SF/F/H Author Sarah Gailey

With her constant award nominations and her high ranking in the finals of the Hugo and Campbell awards, author Sarah Gailey is definitely an author to keep an eye on. With pieces such as River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, it behooves all Sci-Fi readers to keep an eye on her! To get an inside look into her world, we’ve asked Sarah Galy a few questions to get to know her a little bit better and explore what prompted such influential pieces in the literary world.

JB: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

SG: I would tell my younger writing self to listen more than she talks, but to never think that she is required to go along with anything that doesn't feel right in her career.

On a more granular level, I would tell her to read critiques as though they're required edits. While not every critique is valid, looking at one's work as though one absolutely MUST address every critique is a great way to reexamine authorial assumptions, and my work has always become stronger as a result.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Early in the morning of October 9, my wife and I had to say goodbye to our dog, Jack, who had been suffering from a cancerous tumor. Despite the fact he was a 120+ lb dog, he's always been my little guy, happy to be anywhere, as long as he was at my side. In years past, that was often on the hiking trail. In recent years, it was more often on the carpet alongside my writing desk. It's bizarre and sad working from home now without him here anymore, but I'm glad he's not suffering anymore, at least.

The science fiction and fantasy community also suffered a loss this October with the passing of author ElizaBeth Gilligan. I met Beth last year at a convention, and she was kind enough to invite me to join her local writers group. As part of that group, she provided invaluable feedback on my work-in-progress, The Beasts of Qaza, and I had the pleasure of reading her work-in-progress, a sprawling fantasy novel about a tribe of women wylf soldiers. She and her husband were also gracious enough to give me advice on being a parent and a writer. I regret that Beth didn't get a chance to meet my daughter after she was born, and my sympathies go out to her husband and the rest of her family. Beth was a kind and wonderful person, and she'll be missed.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Sure, we've all heard of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Game series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and more recently Nnedi Okorafor's Binti series, but what are some new under-the-radar SF/F pieces that deserve their time in the spotlight? Sometimes the best pieces are the ones found in the nooks and crannies of the literary universe; you just have to dig hard enough to find them. We took the Minotaur by the horns and have compiled a few book recommendations from esteemed SF/F reviewers to give you some suggestions on what book to pick up next!

I thought I had hit my vampire threshold until I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things. (My review at fantasyliterature.com is here.) Morena-Garcia shows us a new take on supernatural bloodsucking creatures, and she provides a gritty, Gibsonian Mexico City as a backdrop. The book gives us novelty by creating various “races” of vampires; our main character, Atl, is from a line indigenous to the Americas. She is described as avian and her family crest is the hummingbird. Other vamps are more in the Bram Stoker tradition, and there is infighting among the bloodlines. Atl, a rebellious party girl, is the sole survivor of an attack on her clan by an encroaching vampire crime family, and she’s fled to the supposedly vampire-free Mexico City. As you might imagine, it’s not vampire-free at all. Once there, she enlists the aid of a scrappy human street kid named Domingo. The descriptions of Mexico City are sharp, by turns gritty, beautiful and romantic.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Good news! The Kindle version of my short story collection, Dreamrush, is available to download for free on Amazon.com for the rest of the week (8/8/17 – 8/12/17). Get your free download here.

To celebrate, my intern-extraordinaire, Jayna Bosse, and I are hosting an author Q&A over on Facebook. So please do head on over there to hit me up with whatever burning questions you have, either about the stories in the book, the writing process, my favorite color, etc., etc. (after downloading the free book first, of course).